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Caledon Music Festival split across two venues this year

July 21, 2022   ·   0 Comments

By Constance Scrafield

As Terry Lim, the organizer of this year’s Caledon Music Festival told the Citizen earlier this month, it is not so easy to find a concert venue with a Grand Piano. This year, the piano best suited for a broader concert repertoire was found at Windrush Estate Winery [John Penny and Marilyn Field].

“We will still have a concert at the Alton Mill,” said Terry Lim, thinking of the concert last year under the canopy over the terrace at the Alton Mill Arts Centre.

“We were looking for a venue with a Grand piano. Alton is still one of our favourite places but we wanted to also try another venue with the Grand which opens up our repertoire.”

At the moment, Mr. Lim is focussing on ticket sales, engaging in social media and doing interviews with other media, radio and print. He has placed some paid ads.

Irresistibly, he cannot help focusing on the music, feeling pretty excited about the repertoire and noting that “there will be wine.”

The sound quality is so good at the Alton Mill.

Yet, the difference with the piano for the first of two concerts of the Caledon Music festival on Saturday, August 6 at Windrush Winery dictates the choices of music that can be made.

Musicians who play for the Toronto Symphony Orchestra (TSO) and other fine orchestras across Canada, join Mr. Lim to perform for the sake of the music and their friendship for him.

“These are all my friends coming from all over Canada,” he attested. “Geoffrey [Conquer] is an amazing pianist. He will open the concert with Schumann’s Human Fantasy. I thought it would be great to vary with solo and then join Emily Vondrejsová, soprano, who is a local artist from Terracotta. It will be great for her to come and do opera arias.”

When Terry Lim designs a concert program, he takes a month to finish it, with every consideration in mind, primarily the charm of the works and how they fit together as a whole. In his thinking, he dwells on the major piece, considering how it contrasts or compliments the rest of the program. The probable audience from the locale and the people who will travel to that location matter very much too and he always feels anxious to present them with the finest choice of music performed by the best musicians. 

For the Saturday, August 7 concert, at Windrush Winery at 3100 Concession Road 3, Adjala, Mr. Lim decided on Mendelssohn’s Trio in d minor.

“It’s a big work,” he assured us. “Violinist Douglas Kwong and Drew Comstock cellist are both TSO. Geoff on piano. It’s very, very virtuosic. They’ll do great. The time is 7:3 and people will show up early and have a drink. I walked around the property. It’s really beautiful.”

Mr. Lim brought his videographer who has made a charming trailer for both the upcoming concerts.

A family in Terracotta have invited the musicians to use their home as a place to stay for the two days of concerts.

“We’re so thankful,” he said. “It makes such a difference, without going back and forth. I was looking for someone to donate their space; when it’s so beautiful, it’s wonderful to play music together.”

The donors offered to let them have party there very graciously.

“They’re all coming to the concerts as well,” he added.

This is Mr. Lim’s first year taking over the Caledon Music Festival entirely. He had split the work and this year is doing it all himself. The work is natural to him, given a background of music and business.

Of his background, he told us that he was born in Korea and came to Canada with his family when he was 12. For a while they, “lived all over,” until in grade 10, he started playing at a very late age. He went on from high school to study commerce and business but still took music lessons and after business school, he decided “to go for music.

“For me the business side of music, combining music and business makes sense, so putting together concerts and doing the business, meeting new friends and meeting new people is wonderful.

“I love playing music and I also love putting the concerts together.”

He told us that whenever he drives out to this lovely area, it makes him smile, it’s so beautiful and people are so friendly.

The concert on Sunday at 2:00 p.m. at the Alton Mill Arts Centre, the concert he promises will be “an incredible afternoon of music making,” opens with Handel- Halvorsen, Passacaglia.

The details, “It’s a very well known, written for violin and viola and there is an arrangement for violin and cello. Another virtuosic piece and a crowd pleaser,” Terry Lim assured us.

Mr. Lim is extended his efforts for this concert by playing himself in a D Major Quintet, which is a very interesting solo flute, which he plays, and violin, two violas and cello.

Followed by Vivaldi’s Summer season. 

Music for music’s sake and the sake of the unusual and beautiful venues. All the pieces in the second half of Sunday’s concert, everything is virtuosic. The artists bios, Terry Lim was clear, “They are really the top musicians in the country. A lot of them are in the States. Even though this is a lot lower scale as a venue, they still were ready to come for the sake of the music and the beautiful location. The opportunity to meet new people.”

After intermission, the remainder of Sunday’s concert is Tchaikovsky’s Souvenir de Florence. A very fiery piece all the way, he called it and Mr. Lim is hoping people are really excited to hear this music, that it will give them something memorable. 

All those pieces together are stretched over centuries; putting it together like a menu and it took him over a month to put it together.

When the musicians heard the program, they said that’s a really good program; a lot of work but really good to do.

“Musicians love working hard at a piece,” he claimed. “They love to accept the challenges and play the pieces well.”

Said Terry Lim about all this, in a nutshell, “I do run things in Toronto but it’s not the same as the beautiful country. I’m looking forward to a winter festival so in the future, there will be an extension. For us, getting to know people coming to the festivals; that’s important for us.”

For tickets: www.caledonmusicfest.ca

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